12:04PM - Readings for Holy Week #5: Maundy Thursday
There is great literary artistry in this passage. Notice the two uses of the word "regard". There is also a neat little chiasm here: pain – sickness – sickness – pain. But it's there to tell us something: it is easy to notice that the Servant is suffering, but we have to look further to see that he is suffering on behalf of the people. In other words, for us. There are a couple of emphatic pronouns here, which I have translated as "it is he" and "it is we".
Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He will grow up before him like a sapling,
And like a root out of the parched earth.
He has no form or splendour that we should notice him,
Nor appearance, that we should desire him.
He was despised and void of companions,
A man of pains, and knowing sickness.
As one from whom men hide their faces,
He was despised, and we did not regard him.
Surely it is he who has carried our sicknesses,
And who has been loaded with our pains.
But is is we who regarded him as stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
– Isaiah 53:1-4